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2351

Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by IainB on March 22, 2015, 06:29 AM »

^ Classic monopolistic behaviour.

2352

Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by IainB on March 21, 2015, 01:47 AM »

Just stumbled upon this as a good example of this sort of thing:
“Wall Street Firm Develops New High-Speed Algorithm Capable Of Performing Over 10,000 Ethical Violations Per Second”

2353

Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by IainB on March 21, 2015, 12:28 AM »

@mouser: I wondered about that too, when it popped into my bazqux feed-reader, and I assumed that, given what has been commented above in this thread, none of this should really come as a surprise to us.

Eric Schmidt and his colleagues are up there in the stratosphere, maximising profits, pulling the strings, out of our reach, and as a corporate legal entity are arguably in a politically, legally and economically vastly superior and dominant position compared to our lesser legal entities and whatever residual "legal rights" we might amusingly imagine ourselves to have.
Google is a great corporation.

If the perceived problem here is "anti-competitve behaviour", or something, then the likely/apparent causal problem is that Capitalism (the economic dogma of capitalism) encourages/necessitates profit-seeking strategies and "competition" often to the exclusion of considerations of moral, ethical, or legal obligations. It's a never-ending game to "play the system", and if one is successful at it, it creates wealth out of thin air (usually with no productive effort/result).
When we use the Internet, we are generally the product (or our data is) and the puppets in this game, and we pay for the privilege to enter into and play in the game (wittingly or otherwise).

Google is a leader, part of an oligopoly - if it isn't a monopoly - and can probably do whatever the heck it wants, with impunity.
Unfortunately, when one tries to address the apparent causal problem (i.e., Capitalism), one runs smack into the brick wall that other economic ideologies seem to have done - e.g., the Communist/Socialist "command economy" system.

So, Google apparently used their position to gain an unfair advantage, eh?
Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.
Google is a great corporation.

2354

Living Room / Re: Recommend free image hosting site?

« Last post by IainB on March 17, 2015, 12:11 PM »

The Flickr site says: (my emphasis)

All your pictures in one place.
On Flickr, everyone gets 1000GB of free storage, enough space for more than 500,000 photos. Our powerful search technology means you can find them anytime you want. No matter where you are, automatically sync your phone's photos to Flickr. Now you can save a lifetime of memories in one place.

2355

Find And Run Robot / Re: Request: Consider placing a flag to indicate which Hotkey Options are preset.

« Last post by IainB on March 17, 2015, 11:53 AM »

Yes, I appreciate the necessity for fixed/preset hotkeys, and the forethought that you as the developer will have given the matter. I probably only use (say) 20% of the capability of FARR, and continue to be impressed when I "discover" some new aspect (to me) to have been built-in by design at some earlier time.   
Your software tends to have your fingerprints all over it.

2356

Find And Run Robot / Request: Consider placing a flag to indicate which Hotkey Options are preset.

« Last post by IainB on March 17, 2015, 02:13 AM »

Whilst experimenting with setting the grave key as the FARR toggle, per this discussion: Difficulty with launching FARR when using ` key + focus on desktop., I had to play about with the Hotkey settings menu.
Some of those settings are preset (fixed) in FARR with relevant fields being uneditable, but the user doesn't get to find that out until they open one (right-click to edit) and see the warning message in red. That's really a bit late to find out - and if the user comes back later to edit one, and can't recall whether it was preset, they have to open it up to find out first.

Suggestion: Could these "preset" Hotkey options be flagged with (say) a red asterisk and a common warning message where they are listed in the Options - Hotkeys window? That would save the user having to open it up to find out first.
I typically have 6 or 7options and don't recall offhand exactly which ones are definitely preset.

Thanks

2357

Find And Run Robot / Re: Difficulty with launching FARR when using ` key + focus on desktop.

« Last post by IainB on March 16, 2015, 10:39 PM »

The "`" character (I don't know what it is called) is an authentic single key on the keyboard, and should not be used (even if it could be) as a single key to start an app up. That would be just bad practice.

-IainB (March 09, 2015, 09:49 AM)

Following @mouser's comment:

...Don't knock it till you try it! That's the key I use on my laptop (which doesn't have a Pause/Break key) -- works well for me, and is in a convenient location.

-mouser (March 09, 2015, 09:56 AM)

 - using Win8-64 PRO I have tried this out as a single-key toggle for FARR. It works perfectly. I think I shall keep it reserved for that purpose, despite it being - from my training/experience - "just bad practice". It's really very convenient as @mouser points out.

By the way, I did not know it before, but I have learned now that the correct name for this key beneath the tilde mark (used as a Spanish writing accent) is the grave (a mark "`" placed over a vowel in some languages to indicate a feature such as altered sound quality. - ORIGIN C17: Fr. grave).
I would normally have no use whatsoever for the grave key, as I use grave/acute accents for French spelling over the vowel as built-in to the European character set installed in my laptop.
I do occasionally use the tilde when writing, so do not want to reserve that for something else.

As @Ath pointed out:

So I changed to Alt+Space, which is better as it can be done with the left hand only.

-IainB (March 10, 2015, 10:29 AM)

That <Alt-Space> keypress opens the System menu on most Windows applications...

-Ath (March 10, 2015, 10:44 AM)

- so, as well as adopting the grave key as the FARR toggle (arguably bad practice), I have also released the Alt+Space key combo back to the system (arguably good practice).   

2358

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: select/display Grid column data > horizontal rows in Memo pane.

« Last post by IainB on March 15, 2015, 06:53 PM »

Yeah that's an interesting idea.. So a panel that has some of the current clip properties one per row for easier viewing.

-mouser (March 15, 2015, 01:03 PM)

Yes, with "some" being a selection of clip properties fields/rows (called "columns" in the Grid selector view). The user could select which rows to display and in what sequence - all or just a few depending or user requirements. That is, the field rows could be selected as per the current Grid view "show/hide/move" for columns (which, by the way, is an incredibly nifty and flexible way of controlling Grid column positions, so one wouldn't want to lose that flexibility in the new "Row" view).

As per my notes on the mock-up image, additional/new features could include, for example:

• (a) The making of URLs anywhere (in any field) clickable by the user, where that might have previously not been the case.
• (b) The making of some fields editable by the user, where they might have previously been fixed/uneditable.

2359

Find And Run Robot / Re: Difficulty with launching FARR when using ` key + focus on desktop.

« Last post by IainB on March 10, 2015, 10:29 AM »

The "`" character (I don't know what it is called) is an authentic single key on the keyboard, and should not be used (even if it could be) as a single key to start an app up.

Don't knock it till you try it! That's the key I use on my laptop (which doesn't have a Pause/Break key) -- works well for me, and is in a convenient location.

-mouser (March 09, 2015, 09:56 AM)

Well, if you are unlikely to ever need that single keystroke for anything else, then I guess it would be fine. I might try it out ... if I can figure how to do that in the FARR Hotkey settings.   

FARR Hotkey toggle settings:
I used to use Ctrl+SPACE to toggle FARR, but stopped doing that because Ctrl+SPACE is also the hotkey to create a "hard" space in MS Word. So I used the Pause key instead, but this became a real pain on the laptop I currently use as it has to be Function+Pause, and the Function and Pause keys are at opposing ends of two of the corners of the keyboard rectangle, thus necessitating a two-handed operation.
So I changed to Alt+Space, which is better as it can be done with the left hand only.

2360

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« Last post by IainB on March 10, 2015, 06:50 AM »

I can offer you some advice from my own hard-won experience, having started to teach myself auto-mechanics for DIY at the age of 18 out of necessity. My motivation was economics - I could not afford to run the car I needed to use. I had to leave home to live in digs which were cheaper than college accommodation, but remote to the college I would be attending, and my brother had serendipitously recently left to work overseas, leaving his old car for anyone to use (it had little resale value).

These are some of the key points I would make:

• 1. Knowledge: Vehicles are all about physics and mechanics. Read up on the design and development of the internal combustion engine. It will save you a lot of time/trouble later on. Read up and learn about the physics of torque and what a torque wrench is and why torque is important in tools/mechanical assemblies. An understanding of timing - i.e., valve timing and ignition timing in the combustion cycle  - could also be very useful.
• 2. Workshop manuals: Don't try to service or fix anything on the car without having a pukka workshop manual to hand for the exact car make and model you are intending to work on.
• 3. Toolkit: Buy a portable steel toolbox (preferably galvanized) of the type that opens out with 2 or 3-layer cantilevered trays and has a good carry handle. It won't hold all of your tools, but it will be an essential item. Some of the tools you will need will be wrenches that will need to fit the same standard of the nuts/bolts on the car - for example, refer Wrench Conversion Table: SAE/Metric/Whitworth (and various Brit schemes). Keep your toolkit (or as much of it as you can) in the car's trunk, ready for when you need it.
• 4. Garage: Fantastic if you have one. If you don't have a garage, then pick a fine day to do routine roadside servicing work. Freezing or wet days are no fun at all and are likely to get your tools wet and make them rusty, and make you ill.
• 5. Battery: Lead-acid batteries are a necessary anachronism, and wear out over time as an insoluble deposit builds up on the plates. There is a chemical additive (I forget its name) that you can add which actually restores the plates in old batteries to near-new state, but battery vendors won't tell you about it. A failing lead-acid car battery discharges very poorly in sub-zero temperatures. Heating it up in an oven can help improve its discharge, but take care not to overheat and melt the battery casing and don't get a battery anywhere near naked flames (hydrogen is given off in the battery cells and is highly combustible.
• 6. Battery charger: Buy a trickle-charger for the battery. Fast charging damages the plates of the battery, whereas regular trickle-charging does not. If you can, leave a battery charging overnight on the trickle-charger.
• 7. Car electrics: Buy a moving-coil analogue multimeter (I built one from a kit). You will need it - car electrical faults can sometimes be fiendishly difficult to trace and fix. It helps a lot if you have studied and understand electronics.
• 8. Using car jacks and axle-stands: Employ a "belts-and-braces" approach at all times. Before jacking up a vehicle, pull the handbrake on and engage 1st/reverse gear or auto-lock ("Park"). Always work on the car on flat, solid ground (concrete, tarmac, or compressed chip). Always put wheel chocks or bricks fore and aft of any wheel that is resting on a flat surface. NEVER allow any part of your body to go underneath a raised vehicle that is not stable and supported by axle-stand(s) or is on non-collapsible wheel-ramps. If you got the vehicle in the air with a jack, ensure that the jack remains securely in position whilst you have the vehicle securely resting and stable on axle-stands/ramps. Do not attempt to operate the jack whilst you are under the car, unless it is to get yourself out of an emergency - e.g., due to (say) an axle-stand that is sinking in soft ground when you are doing an emergency roadside repair. Get a set of four adjustable folding tripod axle-stands, and keep one or two of them in the trunk, with your toolkit.
• 9. Check/correct headlamp alignment: As well as being an interesting and relatively simple exercise in mechanics/physics, checking that the headlamp main and dipped beams are square, parallel and horizontal can not only be useful for safety, but also can provide early warning of something going amiss with the car's suspension.
• 10. Know your limits: Do not try to undertake more major work on your own. Either give it to a garage, or have a friendly mechanic with you - one who is suitably competent to assist you. If you do not have the proper special tools for a job, or do not have experience using them - e.g., an engine hoist for raising the engine block, or calibrated tools for wheel alignment or toe-in/toe out adjustment - then leave it to a garage. Jobs done the wrong way on a car can turn out to be very expensive and/or downright dangerous in terms of accelerating wear and tear, or fracturing/stripping components or due to bits falling off (e.g., due to over-tightening, incorrect reassembly, under-tightening).

• 11. Clothing and cleanliness and safety: Have a high-visibility overall and keep it in the trunk. Keep spare rags and a can of CRC in the trunk (CRC for use as an easing oil and as a cleansing lubricant). Keep a tube of barrier cream and a can of water-soluble degreaser detergent in the trunk, for keeping your hands clean. NEVER wear any flappy clothes or a necktie whilst leaning over the engine whilst it is running. NEVER poke fingers or tools into a moving part - cars can maim/kill you whilst they are standing still. For engine bays, the rule is: If it's metal, it's HOT.

2361

Find And Run Robot / Re: Difficulty with launching FARR when using ` key + focus on desktop.

« Last post by IainB on March 09, 2015, 09:49 AM »

The "`" character (I don't know what it is called) is an authentic single key on the keyboard, and should not be used (even if it could be) as a single key to start an app up. That would be just bad practice.

Go and follow/read the link I gave above, to to see how Microsoft's remapkey works.
Then use remapkey to make CAPS LOCK = Right Shift
You then just tell Eventghost, or AutoHotkey, or whatever you use, to execute FARR when the keys  Left Shift+Right Shift+ tilde are pressed simultaneously.

By the way, never, ever take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2362

Find And Run Robot / Re: Difficulty with launching FARR when using ` key + focus on desktop.

« Last post by IainB on March 09, 2015, 09:17 AM »

The tilde key is "~" (Shift+tilde).
The non-shift of the same key simply gives you "`" (on my US keyboard).
I would suggest giving FARR a hotkey combo that is unique and not used/reserved for anything else.
If you want to use your left hand to press the hotkeys, could I suggest that you use remapkey to make CAPS LOCK = Right Shift.
You could then (say) use as your FARR hotkey: Left Shift+Right Shift+ tilde
Nothing else is likely to use that.

As a possible solution to ALL CAPS accidents...

...
Tip - dispatching the CapsLock gremlin with Microsoft's remapkey.exe http://tips4laptopus...ck-gremlin-with.html
It refers to the Microsoft remapkey.exe utility.
...

-IainB (August 24, 2008, 03:22 AM)

Other keyboard mapping fixes are useful, but redundant if you use remapkey.exe, which works fine in Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Win7-64 Home Premium.

-IainB (March 10, 2012, 03:28 PM)

-IainB (December 26, 2013, 10:28 PM)

2363

General Software Discussion / Re: metadata

« Last post by IainB on March 08, 2015, 12:19 PM »

yes, but this is what I am asking, what would be my business requirements?
sometimes, we don't know what we need, until someone tells us (you will probably need this...) or we realize what we need afterwards, after using a GUI, etc

-kalos (March 08, 2015, 07:35 AM)

Rather than suck the requirements out of your thumb, you ask your users what their requirements are. If they don't know, then postulate what those requirements perhaps could be, then get the business users' buy-in/approval,  and set up a project to trial a prototype system that could meet those requirements. The users will have to agree to commit to being guinea-pigs in the prototype trial.
You could run this trial using some existing software that is available for free/cheap trial - e.g., SharePoint.
The trial will enable you to discover the requirements.

2364

General Software Discussion / Re: VOIP - SpeakFreely.

« Last post by IainB on March 08, 2015, 12:04 PM »

Speak Freely VOIP phone.
(Notes as at 2004-05-12.)

This seems to be an even better alternative to Skype (which is likely to be free only as long as it's in Beta test release), and a lot more secure.  It requires no indexing server (which Skype does need) for your contacts - you just type in their IP address - in fact, if you are chatting to the contact on (say) MSN, Speak Freely somehow picks up their IP address.  There is a version for Linux or Unix also, I gather.

Speak Freely was apparently developed by one John Walker over a period of 7 years, so it will have all the bugs knocked out of it.  It is still under gradual improvement in the public domain through Soundforge:
http://sourceforge.net/

Steve Walker announced his cessation of development of Speak Freely here ("End of Life Announcement"):
http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/
- this makes fascinating reading, including the linked articles; I recommend you read it.


References for Speak Freely:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/    (what a great website!)


You can download the latest v7.6a of the software from:
http://sourceforge.n...mp;release_id=209133

The Windows v7.6a (2004-01-11 08:20) has 3 files:
* the Windows version, with cryptography: speakfb.zip
* the source code for this: speakfs.zip
* the Windows version, without cryptography: spookfb.zip

There are several Soundforge mirror sites.  I downloaded these files directly from Asian mirrors:
http://keihanna.dl.s...freely-w/speakfb.zip
http://keihanna.dl.s...freely-w/speakfs.zip
http://aleron.dl.sou...freely-w/spookfb.zip
_________________________________

2015-03-09: The SourceForge site is apparently still at v7.6a: Speak Freely

2365

General Software Discussion / VOIP - alternatives, PROs and CONs.

« Last post by IainB on March 08, 2015, 11:56 AM »

I initially started using VOIP to make cost-effective phonecalls (i.e., at rates much cheaper than toll charges) to phones in international destinations.
The ones I used were:

• (a) PC-to-Phone, and
• (b) a little-advertised NZ Telecom VOIP service - where the user can place calls from their NZ Telecom landline, to mobile and landline numbers overseas.

I still use both of these, and the other day I opened an account with Skype - the rates are similar to PC-to-Phone.

I have also been using FREE PC-to-PC audio only, and audio-video systems, including:

• SpeakFreely
• Google Chat
• Skype

I would be interested in sharing experiences of these and other VOIP systems, with DC Forum users.

2366

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Wav2txt Using Free Recognition Engine

« Last post by IainB on March 08, 2015, 11:20 AM »

2015-03-09 0516hrs: I've just "bumped" this to see if anyone on the DC Forum knows of newer technology (since the unanswered OP from 2008) which could potentially address a solution to this requirement for automating speech-to-text transcripts for audio files.
I think YouTube might offer something related to this, for some YouTube videos, but I am not sure.

2367

General Software Discussion / Re: metadata

« Last post by IainB on March 08, 2015, 06:58 AM »

...any other consideration I should consider?

-kalos (March 07, 2015, 01:11 PM)

Sorry Kalos, I don't think I can help you any more than repeat the above suggested/recommended approach.
What you seem to be focussed on is a semi-technical solutions-oriented approach.
If you have no documented business requirements or business case, then there would probably be a good place to start.
A detailed description and analysis of the business process you are trying to improve or re-engineer could be another.

2368

General Software Discussion / Re: metadata

« Last post by IainB on March 07, 2015, 10:21 AM »

...is it the best possible?

-kalos (March 06, 2015, 01:59 PM)

I would have no idea. It would all depend on your business requirements really.
What does the business case say for this?

2369

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by IainB on March 07, 2015, 10:14 AM »

@Renegade: Very interesting and factual history video. Thanks. Some more interesting and factual history videos there too.

2370

General Software Discussion / Re: metadata

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 07:08 PM »

@kalos: In answer to your 3 simple questions:

• can you understand this? - Yes. From the information you provide above, there is nothing that seems to be particularly "new" or "tricky" here.
• can you suggest improvements for this model? - Yes I probably could.
• can it be implemented easily? - Yes, it probably could be implemented easily - or at least, with no more difficulty than the many document management and file management system implementation projects that I have been involved with in the past.

However, I would suggest that, if your organisation is concerned to establish a businesslike way ahead for this, then a recommended risk-averse and conventional approach would probably be to get in touch with an IT and management consultancy to help:

• to establish a formal project for this;
• to identify, document, confirm and review the relevant business requirements;
• to draw up an RFI (Request for Information) to send out to potential system/solution suppliers;
• to refine the relevant business requirements in light of the RFI responses;
• to work with your organisation to draw up an RFP (Request for Proposal) for work to implement a solution to meet the refined business requirements, to send out to potential system/solution suppliers;
• to assist in collecting/collating the responses to the RFP, for management to decide on and select the preferred supplier(s).
• to manage the project implementation from the selected supplier(s).

It seems like it should be a very straightforward project, if approached that way.

2371

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia + resource links

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 04:18 PM »

2015-03-06: Added:

• bookmarks4techs.com - A Tech Listing "Largest Listing of Tech Sites On The Internet"

- to the index table in the opening post.

2372

Living Room / Re: email form

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 10:53 AM »

You might find MS Infopath useful, though it will not be supported after 2023, apparently.

2373

General Software Discussion / Re: metadata

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 10:47 AM »

Windows can probably handle anything you throw at it, but it's unlikely to be of much use if the functionality you would typically require is not integrated within a structured document management system of some kind.
For example, you could do a lot worse than take a look at:
Qiqqa - Reference Management System - Mini-Review
Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

2374

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniTool Partition Wizard PRO - do we need a mini review of this software?

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 10:36 AM »

^^ All makes sense.
Maybe somebody on the forum, who is qualified/experienced with the use of this tool, could pick up the challenge and write a review?
That could be useful, both for the developers and for DC Forum members.
I don't think I qualify as, having no need for it, I don't have any purpose for it or experience of using it.

2375

General Software Discussion / Firefox Extensions: maintaining your privacy

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2015, 09:44 AM »

Useful/informative post on Lifehacker.com: ]Everyone's Trying to Track What You Do on the Web: Here's How to Stop Them[/u]

It covers FF extensions and other browsers.
The main FF ones recommended include: AdBlockPlus, Ghostery, NoScript.
I found the link whilst reading the sage advice in this Lifehacker post: Why You Probably Shouldn't Look Up Health Symptoms Online